Mazda MX-5 Buyer's Guide
Seven tracked MX-5 sales, £850 to £5,500, median £2,800, and one telling absence: every result is an NB (1998–2005) or NC (2005–15). The pop-up-headlamp NA cars that started it all are not reaching open auction, because good ones now sell privately at prices their owners prefer to negotiate; that scarcity is the loudest signal in this data.
Know your generations
NA (1989–98). Absent from our results, present in the argument: the original, now firmly a modern classic. UK cars and Eunos imports in honest condition trade from £4,000 to five figures nationally, with early 1.6s and special editions leading.
NB (1998–2005). Four sales, £850 to £5,500, median £2,725. Fixed headlamps, same recipe; the 1.8 Sport with the six-speed box is the pick. Currently the value generation and beginning to follow the NA upward.
NC (2005–15). Three sales, £2,100 to £3,200, median £2,800. Bigger and softer but still the honest article; the folding-hardtop Roadster Coupé versions suit year-round use.
What to pay
£1,000 to £2,000 buys usable NBs and NCs with cosmetic needs. £2,500 to £4,000, around our medians, buys tidy cars with history. £4,500 to £6,000 buys the best NBs; NA money starts where our chart ends and climbs with originality.
What goes wrong
One structural answer: rust in the rear sills and rear wheelarches, the MX-5's only serious enemy and the first, second and third things to inspect. NB sills rot from the inside; NCs suffer less but are not immune. Mechanically these are the most dependable sports cars ever made: twin-cam engines and gearboxes that simply do not fail under maintenance. Check for crash repairs under cheap resprays, soft-top condition, and on NCs the folding-roof mechanism. Everything is cheap; even the welding is standard work.
Our view
A rust-checked NB 1.8 Sport at £2,500 to £4,000 is the best value driving in this entire catalogue: NA experience, newer car, half the money, same upward trajectory a few years behind. Weld the sills before they need it and the car is effectively permanent. If an honest NA surfaces at auction while they remain scarce here, our advice is simpler still: be in the room.
